


count us down

by juldevere



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-21 00:07:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6030871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juldevere/pseuds/juldevere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She tries to remember the last thing she said to Lucas, really said to him. She tries to figure out why it hurts so much when all that she can summon across her mind is muted stares, that there aren’t any words spoken. They can only look at one another and even this is brief because it’s become far too charged and burdened and misunderstood otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	count us down

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! I'm weeks late but here’s my take/version of Girl Meets The New Year.

The longer the two of them go through the motions of dating, of being a fully fledged ‘serious’ couple, the more Maya resigns herself to the truth of how and why she likes Lucas.

More importantly, together, they become discernibly aware of the way he likes her.

As it turns out, it ain’t romantically.

She was beginning to sense his reluctance, his uncertainty, as though he were pushing the very feelings right against her. Their loosely strung ritual of going home together every Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon to go and make out on the edge of her bed always ended the same way – as they kissed and kissed, Maya felt as he twisted and leaned and detached himself as far away from her as possible while still somehow remaining right there beside her.

The first Tuesday of November was no different, although this time - rather than letting their kisses softly move into silence that continued through the lingering of their farewell as he slipped out of the window - he had pulled back after only a minute or two, stuttering out the excuse of a curfew which Maya knew was a complete lie because it was barely hitting 6:30.

She breaks up with him the next day; it doesn’t hurt, it isn’t dramatic or tearful. It’s plain and understood and when she’s detailing it all out to Riley later that night, she expects her to look relieved - Maya isn’t an idiot, the expired brother/sister label had quickly pealed its way right off – but all Riley looks is disappointed and concerned.

“But are you sure you’re making the right decision? It’s only been a month, Maya. You’ve had longer relationships with your shoes.”

Maya is momentarily affronted and thrown by this accusation because hell yes she’s had longer relationships with them – shoes were dependable and durable and fabulous – but knows, when the moment’s past, that Riley was summoning this argument from nothing tangible, that at the very root of it, the argument came only from deliberately constructed denial.

“Riles, you said it yourself: we are sisters, we’re bonded for life. We should be able to tell each other anything and I didn’t tell you that I liked Lucas for as long as you didn’t tell me that you didn’t want to go out with him because you were afraid you’d lose him.”

The façade has been destroyed within seconds; Riley can’t and doesn’t want to pretend anymore. Not with Maya.

“He wants you and you want him.” Maya says simply even though there’s nothing simple about it and Riley noticeably flinches, pulling back the hand Maya had tried to take in her own. It’s the first time Maya can ever recall Riley withdrawing away from her, ever, and the move feels defensive but Riley’s face, her eyes now on the floor, is impossible to read.

And Maya is having none of it.

“ _Hey_. Look at me.” Maya’s says and her voice is sharp and loud and clear and the switch of tone immediately snaps Riley’s attention back up to look at her.

“I know you’re scared and I know what you did, I know what you will always do which is love me and put me first but guess what? This isn’t about me anymore because I’m fine, I can live the rest of my life satisfied with knowing that I’m not going to miss out on being with the guy I was supposed to be with. I’m not supposed to be with Lucas, Riles. But you are. I won’t let you use me or fear or anything else as an excuse anymore.”

Riley’s shaking her head, tears already on her cheeks, determined to reject this, determined to disbelieve it, determined to will Maya to just understand that she needs the security of it all – for it to be assured. To just get her to understand that losing Lucas, his friendship, is not something she’d get over in a year, or two, it’s not something she’d accept and be okay with – and it’s not something she wants to bargain with; being with him was a choice, losing him was not.

“I’m not being naïve, I understand what it is I’m doing but the friendship we have is important to me and I’m not going to risk that.” She tries, wiping at her cheeks, like this small and quiet reasoning is enough; Maya hesitates and closes her eyes, feeling the familiar sting of tears behind them too, before bringing both hands to Riley’s shoulders.

“Lucas is a good person, and honey, guess what? So are you. There’s no way anything could keep him from wanting to be apart of your life, even if you do somehow break up. You just can’t go on the way you’re going, you lied to me, to him but you keep lying to yourself, every day, and that’s worse, Riley. Whether you want to see it or not, this is breaking you and I won’t let you break. You’re just scared and being scared is not an excuse.”

Maya without another word gives a tight squeeze to Riley’s shoulders and turns around and crawls out through the window. Riley stares out in her absence, hearing the words ringing in her ears.

Knowing that despite them, despite the truth of them, that her heart was big, but that the fear, she could not prevent nor silence its vigor from spreading throughout her skin, was bigger still.

 

* * *

 

 Another month goes by. Lucas and Maya are laughing and joking like nothing ever happened otherwise. Watching it from the corner of her eye, from afar, Riley can’t figure it out. She can’t figure herself out. She goes out on another date with Charlie because he’s sweet and isn’t Lucas and there’s nothing even remotely scary about him.

But she can’t figure it out: not herself, not her friends, not her feelings.

She tries to remember the last thing she said to Lucas, really said to him. She tries to figure out why it hurts so much when all that she can summon across her mind is muted stares, that there aren’t any words spoken. They can only look at one another and even this is brief because it’s become far too charged and burdened and misunderstood otherwise.

She can’t really figure that out either.

 

* * *

 

 “ _You. Are. A. Complete. Idiot_!”

Maya pushes at him roughly in the corridor three weeks before winter break.

Lucas looks momentarily stunned, too stunned to do anything to prevent her from shoving him against the nearest wall and yanking the front of his shirt in her hand so hard that the back of his neck hurts. Their banter and jibes had been playful and easy lately but she had quite noticeably taken the edge off of the personalization and directness of them since their burn out, but this attack feels very direct and very personal.

“ _Ow_ and why?” He asks and gently attempts to shake her off but her grip on the material of his polo only tightens and she glares up at him.

“How long ago did we break up?”

“Maya, what’s going on with you?”

Barely waiting for his answer, she cuts in, “A month, _stupid_. We broke up a month ago and you still haven’t done anything. You’ve been walking around for weeks now in a fog, staring longingly with those dumb eyes at the back of Riley’s head in class and still, you have done nothing.”

Lucas frowns, opening his mouth before quickly closing it, realizing that he had no argument, zero, to retort any of it. Because it was true. He knew it was true, he had been walking around in a daze for the past month - really if he thought about it – he’d been stumbling around like that since returning home from Texas. Something was...off, wrong, really, and he struggled to articulate it, to understand exactly what it was. The feeling remained in his stomach, increasing and biting at him whenever Riley happened to be across the room, whenever Riley happened to be looking right through him but directly at everyone else.

Lonely, he realizes then, and his whole body slackens against the wall Maya’s got him up against.

The feeling was loneliness.

“What am I supposed to do? Huh? She sees me as a brother. She loves me like a brother. I can’t force her to change her feelings, Maya, I can’t force her to start talking to me the way she used to again – heck, to even look at me.”

Maya gives him an indignant look and then rolls her eyes and looks about ready to slap him across the face; out of pure instinct, Lucas shifts his head to the side.

“ _Look_. Because she belongs to me and because I love her, I can’t speak for her, but I can speak for you. You like her, Lucas. Actually, you know what? This might come as some sort of dawning revelation to you but I think you might even love her and you think it’s better to give her space or whatever because you think you know how she feels or you’re just lying to yourself about how she feels but if you’d only look up and realize that you are completely wrong, and _stupid_ about all of it.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Wrong about what? Maya-”

But Maya abruptly releases her hold of him just as the second warning bell signaling the beginning of their last period of the day rings out, “All I’m saying is that you’re wrong, Huckleberry. You’re both miserable and I’m sick of it. Do us all a favor, do yourself a favor and do something about it.”

And Lucas is so caught up in everything that just transpired between them that he’s almost a full 5 minutes late to class. Slipping carefully into his seat at the back he realizes with that sharp familiar pang in his chest, that he was, yet again, staring right at the back of Riley’s head.

Talk to me, he pleads silently, turn around and talk to me, _please_ , _I don't know how to do this and_   _I miss you, I miss you so much._

But Riley doesn’t move, doesn’t suggest she’s noticed he’s appeared at all even though he’s sure as the space between them fills with the endless noise of the things they won’t say to one another, that it’s surely so loud, so violent, that she’s noticed nothing else but.

 

* * *

 

 The renowned Matthew’s ‘New Years Rockin’ Eve’ bash thankfully only rolled around once a year. They were crazy, fun and loud parties and someone usually ( _always_ ) ended up crying, puking and singing Old Lang Syne at the top of their lungs out the window by the end of them.

And by someone, it’s Cory. Always, always, always: Cory.

The whole apartment building is invited, and they leave their front door wide-open, people hanging out in the hallway and down the stairs. Riley invites the entire class and for the most part, it’s relatively calm and fun and uneventful; she even manages to pass by Lucas on her way to the beverages bucket without feeling like she’d keel right over.

But then it’s an hour till midnight and their group is antsy and wanting to kill time so someone (Zay, not at all) innocently suggests they play truth or dare like it’s not the dumbest, most dangerous idea in the world. Without so much as even glancing over at each other, Lucas and Riley lose the argument against playing just as quickly as they simultaneously had begun one.

They all gather around the kitchen table and Maya stands at the head, plonking down an empty bottle of club soda in the center.

“Okay losers, we know the rules. Keep the dares to a 100 foot radius and fair warning that anything you want someone to do, they’re doing in front of Mr. Matthews.” She rattles off before grinning shamelessly wickedly, thinking already of her first dare, and spins the bottle.

The first couple of dares are harmless and silly, and no one seems brave enough to pick truth until Farkle is game and Dave, sweet, quiet Dave of all people, decides that tonight is the perfect night to start shaking things up a little.

“Farkle. Your truth: do you know a secret about anyone in this room?”

Farkle is loyal to a fault, but he wears everything: guilt, joy, secrets, on his sleeve and his poker face is laughably theatric at best. Knowing this, even without the question itself being so loaded, Riley immediately bites down hard on her tongue, so hard tears well up; she wills herself not to look at him, not to look at Maya whose entire body has gone completely rigid beside her and most surely, not to look at Lucas who himself looks terribly interested in the answer to this question.

Farkle holds out for all of 3 seconds before his gaze flicks up to Riley and then down to the floor but anyone watching him carefully enough – and Lucas is, everyone is – has seen this tell, and everyone is immediately in an uproar.

“For Riley! He knows a secret about Riley, ooh, Riley, truth or dare…choose truth, choose truth!” Cries Sarah and looks positively gleeful but she isn’t alone and soon there’s a chorus brewing.

Riley wishes she were the floor. Exactly, and entirely that, just the floor, or at least, she wishes she could lie on it and have it engulf her without anyone being the wiser. She attempts to wrangle some of her old, somewhat still expected inflated goofiness around herself but the wide sheepish grin feels limp and fake on her face, and her throat is tightening and - _she will not cry here_ \- she tries to swallow but can’t, _in front of everyone_ , _she will not_ …

But mercifully, and because she’s the greatest friend in the entire world, Maya stands up at that moment and with a swift, indisputable move grabs the bottle from the table.

“Okay crazies, funs over. Looks like Mr. Matthews is ready to hand out the sparklers and drops of non alcoholic champagne.”

In the shuffle and scatter to stand up and move back over to the living room area, Riley finds Maya’s fingers, whispering, _“Thank you”_ and flees through the open doorway and around the corner. Maya along with Zay who too has noticed the shift, has noticed Lucas, moves to shepherd everyone towards Cory who, Maya can only guess from the placid look on his face, is either at the point of crying or puking, it was sometimes too hard to tell.

But Lucas hasn’t moved, he’s frozen to his stool, looking at Farkle who is looking pointedly back at him.

There’s a heavy beat of silence before Lucas asks gruffly, “Truth or dare?”

In Farkle’s defense, Lucas commends, he looks considerably guilty as he grips his fingers to the edge of the kitchen table, hesitating for that half a second before tumbling out the words: “Riley would never trust me again.”

Lucas’ jaw noticeably locks and he shoves himself back from the table, “And that’s supposed to what, Farkle, get me to stop asking and leave this alone. I’m done with leaving this alone, first Maya, and now you...please, Farkle, tell me.” Lucas says, struggling to keep his voice from rising but it’s hard and a couple people have already stopped to look over towards them.

Farkle has now folded his arms across his chest, looking somewhat resigned but mostly heartbroken and the heat within Lucas’ whole body somewhat dulls, because he knows what it is he is asking his friend to do in this moment. The battle that is raging within Farkle who fiercely loves both of his friends and wants nothing but to care for them.

With less force Farkle repeats himself, “Riley would _never_ trust me again.”

But their eyes meet and an understanding is shared. Trust be damned: things, secrets and lies, had been carried, heavy and painful, for far too long now.

Farkle opens his mouth again and starts from the beginning.

 

* * *

 

“Why?” Lucas demands as he's opening the door and letting it fall shut behind him. If she’s surprised or alarmed by his sudden entrance she hides it considerably well; tucking her hair back behind both ears, she looks up at him slowly from where she was sitting on her bed with no measure of deterrence. He’s jarred almost immediately by how exhausted she looks. How resolved. As if she knew that he was going to find out, that he was going to learn the truth and come for her and knew already how this would end.

Which he finds frustratingly unfair because he has no idea about anything other than the way he feels about her and – unquestionably, he knows now - the way she feels about him.

“Lucas…what are you doing here?” She asks quietly.

He comes further into the room, almost reaching the corner of her bed where the bucket of all his stolen boots is.

“Why did you lie to me?”

She hesitates and he keeps going, feeling the rush of adrenaline and fear and a million other things, “Because you did, Riley. You stood right in front of me and you forced us to be something you knew we weren’t.”

“You didn’t stop me.” She retorts quickly.

He balks for a moment and then throws his arms out, “You never gave me the option to stop you!” He exclaims and turns away from her.

A silence falls over the room and for a minute all they can hear is the rumble of laughter and chatter beneath them; somebody had decided to turn on some music and Riley can just make out the familiar bounce of Bruce Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark.

“We’re not doing this now, Lucas.” Riley starts slowly, wondering as she looked all across his back, if it would always be like this, if she'd always feel this different and insane whenever across from him, whenever near him - wondering if these feelings would ever leave her, “There’s 10 minutes before the ball drops and Maya and my parents are waiting for us downstairs.”

But she doesn’t move, doesn’t even move an inch and as he turns back around, those big, brown eyes are there, they meet him beat for beat and he knows in this moment that nothing, no one, could keep him from her – he loves her, he loves her as completely as he thinks one could love a person, with fullness and all his heart.

“Tell me.” He asks her softly and takes a few steps around the bed, closing the gap between them and it’s then that she hesitates, comes to stand, practically leans back - tries not to fall right over.

“I don’t...” She tries but her voice wavers and she can’t keep herself from looking at him

“Tell me.” He repeats quietly and reaches forward, just barely grazing the bump of her elbow; her dress was ocean blue and pretty and she looked so lovely, she was always so lovely to him, he wanted to tell her but couldn’t, all that came out was, “ _Riley_.”

“It doesn’t matter, Lucas. Please, let’s go back to the party.” But in her move to side step around him, his hold on her strengthens and they’re left standing against one another, caught in the silence of their chests meeting. It’s still and quiet for seconds and seconds and seconds that endlessly entwine around them.

“It doesn’t…it doesn’t matter?” He manages, flicking his gaze up from her chin, past her lips, to her eyes, staring right at them as they hold his own, unwaveringly they are holding his own, the words don’t even sound right – because of course it matters, of course it does, “The way I feel about you, how much I miss talking to you, how much I hate that it’s Charlie who walks you home at night, that doesn’t matter Riley?”

His admission rips her right out of the safety of the embrace and what felt like their precious silence before has been broken like glass being thrown at the floor; she brings one hand to rest against his chest, against his heart, hesitating there for barely a moment before she gently pushes him back.

“I’m sorry, I know you deserve the truth but I can’t give it to you, Lucas. I can't. Tell my parents I went for a walk.”

She’s already gone, slipping out in seconds, taking what he feels like is the ground beneath his feet with her. His heart is pounding so hard he can no longer hear the music or the noises coming from beneath him. He has no idea how much time passes but he figures it’s not much because she’s only made it down a block by the time he’s reached the bottom of the fire stairwell.

“Hey!” He yells out, following her down the street that is scattered with people all feverish and giddy, they are forced to weave and duck through them, “That’s not fair. You don’t get to keep on deciding how this goes, you don’t get to decide on what the rules are. You think you’re doing what’s best for everybody well what about you? What about you Riley?”

Like this is the most absurd piece of logic she's ever heard in her life she whips around, exasperated, “Why is that so important? All I want is for everyone to be happy!” She says, throwing her hands up in the air.

But it’s as pathetic an argument out loud as it was in her head and he stops too, keeping a small distance between them. He looks so hurt it takes everything in her not to walk towards him, it takes everything in her not to give in and close their distance and hold him.

“It’s okay, Lucas.” She continues and through the lie her voice stops trembling, through the lie she feels tall, through the lie his face is not hers to hold or reach for, and she wonders if she could really lamely make her way out of this after all, and that they could go back to ignoring their feelings and go back to being lonely and afraid and without out another because that way there was nothing to lose even though it felt more and more like they were really losing everything anyway.

”We had a moment, we were something for a sure, fleeting moment. I know that we were but I also know that it ended, and that it’s okay for you to feel that way about Maya, if you want to be together, then you should. I’m sorry for lying to you but I’m telling you now that it’s okay.”

He's already coming forward before she can finish, “Stop it, Riley. This has nothing to do with Maya anymore, and even if it did, it’s not okay, none of this is okay, you throwing us away is not okay!”

An anger boils within her, unable to smother it any longer, every part of her is throbbing with a feeling that snarls and burns, “Why can’t you just let this go? Why can’t you just understand that I don’t wanna lose you, because it’s inevitable Lucas, we’ll grow apart, there’ll be other girls, life will happen and you won't be there anymore!” She yells across the block that separates them, indignant and sad and angry with him for following her, for not stopping her from labeling them as something that they never were in the first place, for a thousand more things that aren’t his fault, it’s not fair. It’s not fair, the unknowingness, the fact that she felt like she could explode from everything that her heart was demanding her to feel.

He's quiet for so long, looking at her in a way that makes her feel instantly so profoundly wrong about all of it, in a way that he's looked at her before, a hundred times over, but she's either missed it or ignored it or hadn't wanted to hold it for fear of its release.

"I love you." He says with a clarity that punches her square in the chest, her breath catches in her throat, her heart catches in her throat, everything is in her throat.

"It doesn't matter."

"And I wanna be with you."

It hurts to swallow, to move, to think, there's an ache throbbing.

"It doesn't matter."

She can barely make him out on the sidewalk, her vision clouded, there are tears for sure on her cheeks.

"What does then? What you want? What do you want, Riley?"

 _You_ , she wants to scream but opens her mouth to break out a broken, "It doesn't...it doesn't matter" instead.

Suddenly her back is against the brick wall of the porch steps that she had been standing beside, with nothing but the intoxicating smell of his neck seconds from her face and then he’s there, up close, there are tears in his eyes too and she can’t breathe – he won’t let her breathe, "My life...my life has _never_ been the same since you’ve been in it and I don't want to go back to what it was before you. It won’t ever be the same before you and it won’t ever be enough without you. It matters because I can't stop feeling this way about you and I never want to. So I’m asking you, please…what do you want?”

He’s breathing rough and fast and his grip to her elbows is strong but she can’t tell him to let go, her heart is wild and her eyes are wet with tears and she loves him, terrifyingly so, and she never, ever, wants him to let her go.

So she kisses him.

It’s soft for the shortest of moments and he’s grip on her loosens, he’s taken so off guard but then another moment passes and he’s got one hand in her hair, one scooped around her back, tugging her impossibly closer. She kisses him again and this isn’t the subway, they aren’t children anymore - there’s no release, they cling to another and he’s opening his mouth for her wider and it’s heated, a little impatient – like they’ve been desperately waiting right on the edge for it, this chance to be close.

He breaks away, just barely, but even as he’s parting from her and her lips are bruising she decides that breathing is for suckers; that she never wants to stop kissing him, ever.

“You and me and us,” She whispers in a hush as the fireworks above them burn the sky with color, “I want that. I want you, Lucas.”

He’s smiling, so wide and free, his thumb brushing along her jaw, “Even though this just happened…”

But he can’t finish; she’s kissing him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Even after re-reading this multiple times and watering it down somewhat, I still feel slightly unsettled by how advanced the maturity level may seem – I wanted to respect their ages but didn’t want to feel restrained by them either, and finding that happy medium was something I struggled with. In the end I’ve obviously decided that I’m comfortable enough with the content to publish it, but I just wanted to put somewhat of a disclaimer here and say that if you feel that this was too mature, even inappropriately mature, I apologize. 
> 
> Much thanks for giving this thing a read.


End file.
